The B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation League said today that a $45 million-a-year Arab propaganda offensive aimed against Israel, Zionism and the Jews is underway in the United States, heavily financed by Arab oil producers, the American oil industry and other pro-Arab elements in this country. It has already made considerable headway in reaching such “key targets” as American legislators, the mass media, business, labor, college campuses, churches and the Black community.
The purpose of the campaign is “to swing American public opinion and foreign policy against Israel,” ADL national chairman Seymour Graubard said at a news conference at the opening of the organization’s 62nd annual meeting at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.
He said the details of the Arab propaganda campaign were called from a comprehensive two-year study conducted by the ADL under the direction of its associate director and general counsel, Arnold Forster, and Lawrence Peirez, chairman of the ADL’s civil rights committee. According to the 118-page study released today, the Arab propaganda drive receives $30 million a year from the Arab states and an additional $15 million from the “Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Companies.”
THREE BASIS OUTLETS CITED
The ADL study said the Arab propaganda apparatus in the U.S. had three basic outlets; The Arab League and individual Arab countries acting through their embassies, UN missions and information ministries, all aligned with the Palestine Liberation Organization large sections of the Arab-American community, especially the Association of Arab-American University Graduates, Inc, and the National Association of Arab-Americans; and a variety of pro-Arab groups which included major oil companies, ex-diplomats of the “Arabist” stripe, church lay leaders, some university faculty and students and professional publicists and propagandists.
These diverse groups represent both the Old and New Left, segments of the far-right and the traditional anti-Semitic lunatic fringe, the ADL study said.
The study said one constituent of the Arab propaganda lobby was the Washington-based American Near East Refuges Aid Inc. (ANERA) which operates under a humanitarian guise and has received contributions from the Arabian-American Oil Co. (ARAMCO) Esso Middle East; Esso Standard of Libya; Gulf Oil; Standard Oil of California; Standard Oil of New Jersey (Exxon) and Texaco.
Another Arab propaganda organ, the ADL said, was Americans for Middle East Understanding (AMEU), headquartered in New York, which was described by the study as “largely a creature of ARAMCO” which has contributed more than $400,000 towards its activities since 1968. The ADL named as other contributors to this group American Independent; Oil Ashland Oil; Esso Middle East; Exxon; Marathon and Mobil, AMEU’s publication, “The Link,” has a circulation of more than 40,000 and is anti-Israel and anti-Zionist in content, the ADL study reported.
According to Pierez, “the Arab propaganda offensive in the United States and the Arab master plan of political warfare are not aimed at mere image polishing and equal treatment in the media. They reflect, rather, the Arab goal of destroying the Jewish State and replacing it with another political structure in the same Holy Land territory.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
